Abraham Hunsaker (1812-1889)
}} History - Abraham Hunsaker Married his first wife Eliza when he was 20 years old and 34 days; Eliza was 15 years and 10 months lacking 2 days. He lived with his father for 2 months till he could build a cabin. this is were he took up housekeeping. His father had let him make an improvement on some vacant land; He lived there for about 2 years. He had dug for water some 65 feet and the water was not good. So, He sold out and bought him a farm where he lived and built a frame house and large rough barn and set out a large orchard of apple and peach trees. They lived there till He Joined the Mormon Society. He heard the Gospel in the vicinity of his birthplace and was baptized on, 15 November 1840, by David Evans. He was a Citizen of Nauvoo. Abraham passed through the persecutions to which the Saints were subjected and accompanied the exiles to the Missouri River where he in July 1846, enlisted in the Mormon Battalion in Company '"D." He endured the trying march (the battalion made a grueling march of nearly 2,000 miles from Council Bluffs, Iowa, to San Diego) across the continent and was discharged at Los Angeles one year after enlistment. Making his way to the Valley he reached Salt Lake City less than three months after the arrival of the Pioneers. He continued his march eastward and found his wife near Council Bluffs, Iowa. Next season, 1848, he returned to the Valley with his family. In February 1856, the Indians killed his son, Lewis, at the south end of Utah Lake. The manner of the boy's death was never known as his remains could not be found. At the April Conference, 1856, he was called to settle in Carson Valley, now in Nevada, which mission he filled and returned in time to participate in the Echo Canyon expedition in the fall of 1857. He was called on a Proselytizing Mission to the East Indian Mission and was set apart, 10 October 1874, by Charles Coulson Rich. He was called from Brigham City, Box Elder, Utah Territory, United States. He resided in Brigham City several years, then located in Honeyville, where, in 1877, he was chosen as bishop. He held that position until January 3, 1889, when he passed away at the age of seventy-six years. The first dry farm grain in Box Elder County was raised by Abraham Hunsaker in the vicinity of Honeyville in the year 1863. That season, he harvested between three and four hundred bushels of white touse wheat. Hand plows and harrows were used in preparing the soil and the grain was cut with a side rake, then a luxury, since most grain was cut with a cradle. The experience of 1863 led Mr. Hunsaker to try the plan of the summer following. He prepared seventy-five acres of ground in this manner and in August planted it to a variety of spring grain. He pastured it that fall and the next season, his grain yielded sixty bushels per acre. (History of Box Elder County, p. 56-57) See Also * Abraham Hunsaker * Hunsaker in Adams County, Illinois * Hunsaker in Box Elder County, Illinois